Marks
by Aranya Ver'Sarn
Summary: Aranya has always had issues with her own vulnerability, with letting anyone else see it. There is an undeniable intimacy in letting someone see your scars, especially the ones that you've magically kept hidden from the entire world. In the dark, with someone you've found to love & trust more completely than you've dared to in too long, there are meaningful ways of becoming bared.


Over and over and over again, Aranya would trace Halenvar's tattoos and scars with her fingertips. She still had so many to ask him about. They had not had much time with each other, recently. It had made them miss each other a great deal.

Softly the arcanist would trail her touch over the many marks on the canvas of the warrior's skin, and just as softly he would paint warmth on hers in return. Even the slight buzz of magic from her red mana tattoo did not deter his caresses, he didn't avoid or hasten away from any inch of her.

Only three marks had she to show.

"The unicorn's head is old," said Aranya, her coal-black hair lifted up from the back of her neck. "The phoenix emblem is newer, gotten after the Betrayer's gift was taught to our people and I recovered from the withdrawal brought by the Sunwell's absence, and we began to rebuild the kingdom." The wings of the immortal creature lay inked under her fair wrist. "You already know the deal that was made that got me the Kabal tattoo."

The rest of her was flawless. Any scar she had ever gained, erased by magic just as soon as it was earned. All the better for anyone to underestimate her, with nothing else of her past written on her skin for them to read. And yet…

"I could show you, with a spell," murmured the sorceress. "I know magic is distasteful to you, but you and I have known for some time, the demons in our pasts and how they match. Things we've done, hurts we've carried on our souls, seeking acceptance, solace, and still thirsting for all the perils we live by." Her smoldering green eyes held his, reflecting each other in the dark where they lay. "I would not feel exposed in letting you see the scars that I have earned my life and my soul with. Just you," she said. "Would you allow me?"

Halenvar allowed her fingers to trace across his scarred body, marks he earned fighting for what he thought had been right. He shivered slightly as one large one on his face was touched, nerve damage apparent. Bite marks, weapon scars, burns, and others littered his body mixed in with new and old tattoos, his runic tattoo the freshest.

His rough hands traced her tattoos, the Kabal ink buzzing under his fingertip. But she was right, it didn't bother him, it was part of her and he loved each part, even the parts he did not know yet. He memorized each line of her tattoos, each curve of her form, her voice, her smell. They did not have alot of time with each other, so he savored the quiet moments when they did, when they were not fighting for their lives, or for another's life.

His green blue eyes locked with hers. He knew what she offered, a chance to see her bit of weakness. He had seen some, her fears, her regrets. But it was her whole being that inspired him. Not her fears or weakness, not her triumphs or influence. It was her.

"I would like to see. It is part of you and part of the Arcanist who called me a brute at one time." He smiled to her, the smile he reserved only for her. "I know you feel the need to hide these, to preserve your beauty but you are beautiful to me in every way." He traced her arm a moment. "If you show me, I will share a story of whatever you wish, what ever you need to know."

A smile pulled up the corners of the mage's soft lips, and she grasped his hands in hers. A whisper in archaic Thalassian was breathed over the skin of his knuckles, casting the spell.

 _See what was made unseen  
What was hidden that cannot be undone _

Gently, the woman guided the valarjar's rough hand to silky blackness of her hair, and his fingers did the rest on their own by slowly sweeping into the coal-dark strands. "This whole side of my hair would have never grown back if I hadn't been healed in time. It was terribly burned by felfire, in Tanaan," she said.

Softly laying her fingers over the warrior's wrist, she guided his hand down, to her neck and throat, where he would perceive layers upon layers of past wounds. The side of her neck bore the felfire burns that matched what happened to the side of her hair, but there were other wounds as well. "Collars," said Aranya. "Chains and cages. Some think it more worth their while to attempt breaking and taming me, than to kill me, and they're always wrong." Her fingertips strayed a bit to rub at her own skin, as if feeling the ghost of a memory. Her whiskery black eyebrows crinkled down a bit as she gazed at nothing. "They always chafe," she murmured.

More past battles appeared to Halenvar's perception as is hands slid slowly down over her slender shoulders and arms. Slashes from blades and claws and some gunshot wounds of differing caliber. Others were injuries of the environs she'd been to, from thorny vines that raked too deep.

Her wrists and hands had so many layers of the past that they practically glowed with the enchantment, chaotically. Ropes, shackles, burns, ritual etchings of the Amani that she had escaped from, but not all these wounds were from strife. Some of these were accidents from study, spells and experiments gone awry. "I don't have a count of how many times something blows up in the career of even the most careful of mages I've known," said Aranya wryly.

Further down her torso, it got worse.

Places where Helya's beast had clamped the sorceress in its jaws when she went to rescue Halenvar from Helheim, as it thrashed around in its death throes from the formidable arcane wrath she had let loose on it. "These ones are from orc weaponry," pointed out Aranya of a handful more. "The Second War… My first war. I was defending Dalaran, it was my home at the time. I was mentoring some of the young nobility of Stormwind, and Gilneas, among others."

Her legs bore wounds that were only natural in fights with animals and vicious creatures, but there were also marks from where they'd gotten caught by something, or injuries from falls she had taken. Only her ankles bore corresponding layers of shackles as her wrists did.

Her back had seen the touch of blade, chain, and sizzling magics, but it was the different layers of ritual etchings that made the most troubling impressions. "The Amani I lived near were the first to try to use me for their gods," explained Aranya. "After them, there have been warlocks, murlocs, ogres, the Twilight of Hyjal… Somehow I escape before the magic is done and the markings can become worse than a new scar."

Aranya brought Halenvar's hands up to her lips, and breathed the words that would end the spell. She kept a hold of one and laid it over her heart. "This is the only thing that always remembers what my skin is made to forget."

Halenvar sighed, not a sigh of regret or of sadness, but one of contentment. His eyes closed feeling her heartbeat under his hand, feeling his entire world under his hand. Everything she had said, shown, embraced was a part of her and to him it was adding gold to a horde. "There are stories behind mine as well…"

The Valarjar leaned back, his scarred chest glowing faintly in the dying light of the hearth. A three pronged scar on his left shoulder, marks from a felstalker, earned in the Netherstorm. A rope burn across his neck. "I was hanged, left for dead in Shadowmoon Valley by the fel orcs. They thought it was fun to watch me choke, they choked on their own blood when I was freed." a thousand scars across his chest and stomach, blades, claws, arrows. A terrible burn across his right side, "Shadowflame, the cultists of the Twlights Hammer were very upset with me for killing one of thier cult leaders."

He took her hand, her finger, and ran it across the scar on his face. "You know the story for this on. Each of mine where taken for the greater good, so that others may live while I faced death." He kissed her finger tip, "I would never trade them for anything, they are my story, until now." The light was fading fast, darkness overcoming the room. "Yet, I would bear a thousand more to keep you from pain, from misery. I love you, you are my heart and my breath. I don't know if I have told you this before but I would die a hundred deaths if it meant you would never be scarred again. If I were gone, and you were fighting for your life, I would come back from the depths of Helheim to fight with you."

The light faded from the room, as he pulled the bear skin blanket over them both. The night had come but it was far from over…


End file.
